Under the leadership of Dr. Lynn Todman, Professor and Chair of the Department of Population Health at the School of Global Health, the Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church has awarded Meharry’s School of Global Health (SGH) a $250,000 planning grant to advance maternal mental health during the postpartum period. This initiative will build on SGH’s existing Health Equity and Action for Resilient Transformation (HEART) efforts to promote heart health and improve healthy longevity in San Bernardino, California; Nashville, Tennessee; and Detroit, Michigan.
Roughly one-third of pregnancy-related deaths in the United States occur after the baby is born, during the postpartum period. Mental health conditions remain a significant contributor to these deaths, while postpartum anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidal ideation, and substance use disorders can also contribute to serious complications and long-term health consequences.
These challenges are not experienced equally. Racial and ethnic minority populations, people living in poverty, those with personal or family histories of mental health conditions, and individuals experiencing intimate partner violence face a greater-than-average risk of poor postpartum mental health outcomes.
The effects can also extend well beyond the mother. Poor maternal mental health can influence children’s mental, cognitive, and brain development from infancy into adulthood and contribute to intergenerational patterns of risk across families and communities.
The Global Ministries grant will support Dr. Todman and the SGH team in developing a context-specific model of care designed to strengthen the clinical, social, economic, and political ecosystem surrounding postpartum maternal mental health. The model will seek to reduce silos and gaps in care by aligning four key areas of intervention: clinical practice, institutional processes, community-based initiatives, and advocacy and policy.
The grant will also provide experiential learning opportunities for eight SGH Research Assistant Interns, who will contribute to environmental scans, literature reviews, data collection, community assessments, stakeholder engagement, project coordination, model development, evaluation, communications, and sustainability planning.
This initiative builds directly upon SGH’s HEART program, which addresses cardiovascular disease—another leading contributor to maternal mortality. Together, mental health and cardiovascular conditions account for a substantial share of pregnancy-related deaths and are deeply interconnected. Depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder can increase cardiovascular risk, while conditions such as heart failure, stroke, and heart attack can contribute to anxiety and depression.
By bringing these issues together, Dr. Todman’s leadership advances a more integrated approach to maternal health—one that recognizes the connections among mental health, cardiovascular health, longevity, and the broader conditions that shape the health of women, families and communities across generations.
